A Preference

When Robyn first got pregnant and people asked if we wanted a boy or girl I would honestly answer that I didn't have a preference. But in unidentifiable ways that has changed over the last nine months; I've slowly changed to have a preference. I can't explain it exactly, but it's somehow wrapped up in this:

Having been to my fair share of weddings I've seen this moment many times, where the father of the bride stands up and talks about his daughter, and at that moment his love for her becomes this living breathing palpable thing in the reception hall, and everyone there is better because of it. I want to be that guy someday.

Non-talkers

I liked this from Angle of Repose:

Like my grandfather, he [my father] was not a man of words, and it is an easy mistake to think that non-talkers are non-feelers.

A Little Scenery

Not often when reading a novel do I marvel at descriptions of scenery; in fact, more often than not I'm bothered by having to read too much about scenery. But Angle of Repose has drawn me in with scenery descriptions. There is a whole chapter dedicated to the descent into a mine that is really great (but way to long to quote here) and this description of a meadow that left me feeling and seeing tall grass all around me:

She guided her horse through willows and alders and runted birches, leaning and weaving until the brush ended and she broke into the open. She was at the edge of a meadow miles long, not a tree in it except for the wiggling line that marked the course of the Lake Fork. Stirrup-high grass flowed and flawed in the wind, and its motion revealed and hid and revealed again streaks and splashes of flowers--rust of paintbrush, blue of pentstemon, yellow of buttercups, scarlet of gilia, blue-tinged white of columbines. All around, rimming the valley, bare peaks patched with snow looked down from above the scalloped curve of timberline.

All but holding her breath, she pushed into the field of grass. The pony's legs disappeared, his shoulders forced a passage, grass heads and flowers snagged in her stirrup and saddle skirts. The movement around and beneath her was as dizzying as the fast current of the creek had been a moment before. The air was that high blue mountain kind that fizzes in the lungs. Rising in her stirrup to get her face and chest full if it, she gave, as it were, a standing ovation to the rim cut out against the blue. From a thousand places in the grass little gems of unevaporated water winked back at the sun.

Labor Eve

Yesterday Robyn and I woke up with the great idea of getting lots of baby stuff done with this extra day off. The list looked a little like this:

• Buy stroller


• Get new dresser


• get curtains for baby's room


• buy warm clothes for baby (we got a lot of summer dresses for the little one)


• sign up for diaper service


• find a pediatrician


• wash and put away all the new baby clothes


• finish thank you cards from shower


• put together email list of people who will want to know when labor begins

It was a good list, full of useful, necessary things to do (only four weeks from expected due date). So I looked at it and said, "hmm, maybe we should go to Santa Cruz instead."

And Robyn replied, "I think Napa is warmer right now."

So I looked on the Internet for a few minutes, reserved a room in Calistoga, scheduled some massages and off we went. We're back today, with nothing crossed off our list, but man was that sun and massage nice.